[Sca-cooks] Further adventure at the impromptu open-air Chinese market

[Elaine Koogler]

Small world, ain't it!  Hong Kong influence, d'ya suppose???  Or maybe
Singapore?

Kiri

Philip & Susan Troy wrote:

> Hullo, the list!
>
> Those of you who've been on this list a while may remember my account of
> visiting a rather peculiar sidewalk-based Chinese produce/fish/whatever
> market that mysteriously appears for a couple of hours each Thursday
> morning in clement weather. A couple of guys in trucks just appear at
> around 8:30 AM, set up their crates of produce (except for the fish guy,
> who keeps his wares on ice in his truck, to keep it all in the shade),
> and sell it right from the sidewalk. This can include anything from huge
> winter melons that would be prizewinners if they had been pumpkins, from
> which they cut chunks [roughly] to your specifications, fresh water
> chestnuts with a texture, flavor and aroma something like coconut,
> mangos, papayas, durians, five or six types of tsoy (leafy green veg),
> the works. I picked up some huge white peaches, some President plums,
> some white champagne grapes, and three large bunches of asparagus for
> under $5.
>
> The fish seller either wasn't coming today or had not yet arrived, so I
> missed him, but the _other_ occasional vendor, the man that sells tea
> and cakes, was. Among the unusually large assortment of flour-based
> goods (most still warm), which included steamed pork and cabbage buns,
> baked custard buns, rice noodle rolls filled with dried shrimp,
> scallion, and peanuts, some kind of sesame buns I had never seen before,
> and I have no idea what else, was something that caught my (okay, my
> son's) eye.
>
> The man was also selling bags which contained five or six items that
> looked a bit like halves of sandwiches, triangular cakes presumably cut
> from a sheet and stacked in layers with a filling inside. Upon closer
> inspection these proved to consist of what looked like some kind of red
> jam and a pale buttercream inside, with traces of a dusting of powdered
> sugar on top.
>
> My lady wife said to the man, in Cantonese, something like, "Oh, don't
> those look nice!"
>
> He smiled and responded a little too quickly for me to follow, but I
> think I caught the gist and a couple of untranslated words. (My wife
> later confirmed my suspicions.) He had said that this was an old Hong
> Kong specialty, known as Vik-tawwi-ya Aspunge Asannawich...
>
> My ribs hurt...
>
> Adamantius
> --
> Phil & Susan Troy
>
> troy at asan.com
>
> "It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
> things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
> let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98
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